ABSTRACT
The first chapter deals with the “alarmism” on inflation that started in the 1970s and the economic policies aimed to fight it. It shows that after the great wave of industrial action in that decade and the unions’ subsequent defeat due to the decentralising of production to small units and the elimination of the automatic indexation wage mechanism, union density started to decline and so did the wage share. The chapter also presents the CGIL’s position on the 1992 and 1993 tripartite agreements that eliminated wage indexation and promoted a new bargaining system and concludes with a dedicated section to the CGIL’s proposals for the economic development.
